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In its January decision in Uniloc v. Microsoft, the CAFC barred the use of the 25 percent rule in a reasonable royalty analysis, finding that it was a "fundamentally flawed tool for determining a baseline royalty rate in a hypothetical negotiation." Uniloc and several other recent rulings on patent damages will have a broad impact on how reasonable royalties will be calculated in the future.

NERA hosted a panel discussion in East Palo Alto on 4 March 2011 that provided a brief overview of the heightened requirement for relevant economic analysis, as described in a line of recent cases, including Cornell, i4i, ResQNet, and culminating with Uniloc.

The panel included Mallun Yen, Executive Vice President at RPX Corp, and Dr. Kent Van Liere, NERA Senior Vice President, and was moderated by NERA Senior Vice President Dr. Alan Cox. The panel explained how the approaches taken by many damages experts have been flawed and do not meet the courts' new standard for economic analysis. The panelists also discussed the rigorous economic analyses that patent litigants will need to take to support their reasonable royalty positions in a post-Uniloc world and how to use the higher evidentiary standard to push back on unreasonable and unsupported royalty opinions.